


Monochrome

by CrossGenesis



Category: Transformers
Genre: ColorblindAU, M/M, Sparkbond, Sparkmate, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, hotlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24657835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrossGenesis/pseuds/CrossGenesis
Summary: Older mechs weren't born with the full color spectrum. They need a compatible mech to render those hues. A sparkmate.Hot Rod was a younger mech that didn't need that kind of activation. Deadlock isn't as young as Hot Rod.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod, Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet, Implied Rodimus/Megatron, Rodimus/ Drift | Deadlock
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

"You see colours, Deadlock?" 

"What kind of stupid question is that?" 

Whatever rebuttal Hot Rod composed was lost in the litanies of _whines and moans_ escaping his opened intake as Deadlock quickened his fingers stretching his tender valve. The Autobot was placed on the Decepticon's lap, legs wide open and back resting on Deadlock's firm chest. One hand guiding the Decepticon's in and out of his young valve and the other interlaced with his berth partner's free hand. Grip tightening whenever he felt too much charge, or too much pain, or just too much. 

Deadlock's spike was tucked in between Hot Rod's aft cheeks. Finding inefficient stimulation whenever Hot Rod would grind back to him as a result of his own pulsing pleasure. But they weren't in any rush. They had time, not just all the time they wish the universe would give them, but they had time to take things slowly and savour every stolen touch, stolen moan, stolen moment. 

"Colours, Deadlock. Col- _ohh hnngh_ " 

Hot Rod's words were once again lost in Deadlock's lips locking with his. _Glossa playing with another._ Exploring Hot Rod's intake as if there was something precious there that was to be dug up with the gentle yet hungry tips of his glossa. Sucking on Hot Rod's lip plates for a brief moment then continuing his search yet again, diving into the wet and vibrating caverns. " _Wait! Deadlo-ahhck_!" Hot Rod attempted to get a coherent sentence out. But the glossa against his own and the digits sliding in and out of his valve. Two of Deadlock's sharp appendages digging deep into his frame. Searching and scurrying for something. Dragging him into submission and robbing him of his thoughts, his ideals, and his spark. It's all too much for Hot Rod. But his curiosity is more insatiable than his lust. 

Hot Rod took all of his remaining strength and trapped the Deadlock's helm in between his hands. Pushing their lips apart so that he may compose the words he wanted to ask Deadlock once again. "You see colors? Like the entire spectrum?"

Deadlock didn't stop his digiting. He could see that Hot Rod was using every bit of his strength to maintain composure. It's ravishing. "Why are you so curious about that?" 

"Kup told this story in one of our classes" 

Hot Rod let Deadlock slip under his helm and plant gentle kisses on the sensitive cables there. 

"Old mechs' optics aren't capable of rendering the spectrum at their sparking. He said that they needed to lock eyes with a compatible set of optics" 

Deadlock started spreading his valve, trying to prepare him for the spike that was nestled between his aft cheeks. Reminding him of the girth he'd have to be ready for. Hot Rod's arms tried to find their place over Deadlock's helm. Toying with the intricate designs there to distract him from the impending overload he's afraid he might tip over to if he didn't find something else to do. He pulled Deadlock from his neck and locked optics with him. His ruby red optics that is littered with so much emotion. Desire. Lust. And something else Hot Rod wouldn't dare assume.

"Or as the old timer put it: Your sparkmate's optics, looking right into them, gives color to your world" 

"You think I'm that old?"

Deadlock pulled his digits out of Hot Rod, with the Autobot biting down a whine. The Decepticon placed both his hands on Hot Rod's thighs, relaxing the tense and tired muscles there. Pinching a few cables which he knows would get him a few globs of transfluid from the hungry valve. "You ready?" Hot Rod leaned in for another kiss as his answer.

Deadlock tried to lift him from his lap but Hot Rod put his own hands over his in halt. "I - I want you to lay down. Let me do the work this time" Deadlock returned a kiss in agreement. Smirking at the vigour the younger mech was showing. 

None of them dared break the kiss as Hot Rod pushed him down the berth. Straddling the Decepticon's sleek frame. Deadlock let his hands travel to his partner's side and find one over the leaking valve. His own doing. He dipped his digit once again into that valve that forced a moan put of Hot Rod. "Not letting me do all the work. You do think I'm old".

Hot Rod stole one last kiss on his smirking lips before teasing himself with the pressurized spike under his valve. Dipping bit by bit. 

"You assumed that" 

Hot Rod breathed out. His optics flickering with every new inch he let his valve to be explored into, dug into. "Kup said- _oh! Vector Sigma_!!"

"Time's like this-" Deadlock met his valve with another thrust that pulled another set of curses laced with lust from Hot Rod, "-my designation is the only thing I want your glossa to process. What's my designation, _Hot Shot_?" 

Hot Rod shivered at the pet name. Only Deadlock could call him like that. Only Deadlock. " _Deadlock_ " both of them felt a stronger pulse of charge run across his frame. Both their optics flickering. Both their sparks burning and their light peeking through bits and crevices of their chassises. " _Deadlock. Deadlock. Deadlock"_

By some override in Hot Rod's incoherent systems. His chassis started setting a transformation sequence and revealed his spark chamber with his spark presented out of his chest. Deadlock's eyes were almost attracted to the bright light before him. Hot Rod's processors weren't functioning very well. No longer knowing whether he wants his spark back in its chassis or his overload be sated at every bounce of his hips. But the look on Deadlock's optics, rather its color and hue, changing from red to blue. It was a sight that Hot Rod knew he'd want kept safe, a sight he's grateful he'd seen. Even if it was but a fleeting moment. The Decepticon's lips moved but Hot Rod didn't hear what he said. The pulses on his audials were too loud, his spark pulsed too loud, and his interface panels too demanding. _Too hot. Too much._

Hot Rod's exposed spark let out a pulse of energy wave as he felt all the coils in his interface panels go unhinged. He could swear that the hot, searing pleasure fried a bit of his minor circuitries. And the pulse wave from his spark was enough to tip Deadlock off the sight of his bright spark and tip him over into an overload unlike any other. Deadlock didn't feel it from his spike. He felt it come from everywhere in his frame, all at the same time. 

He felt the surge of charges at his every cable and disperse at every inch and flat and curve of his shivering frame. His optics burning as bright ad the spark he'd been captivated with and his spark, even with the missing face from its spark casing, felt hugged. _Secured. Loved_. It took a few moments for him to recover from what seemed to be all of the universe's heavens opening up and welcoming him there before he's dropped back into his squeaking berth in his old Dead End apartment. 

He onlined his optics and was very much grateful to Primus that atleast the angel who sent him to those heavens was still with him. Hot Rod's spark was still out of it's casing, venting harshly and running to cool down all his overheated systems, valve leaking with both valve and spike transfluid, optics lidded but looking down to Deadlock with a very serene film. Blue. _A beautiful blue_.

"Beautiful. Blue" 

Deadlock realized that he was repeating those words again and again. Admiring Hot Rod. Beautiful blue optics as opposed to his red paint. As opposed to his own red optics.

"Me or you?"

Hot Rod took himself out of Deadlock's spike. Hissing from oversensitivity before commanding his processors to initiate the transformation sequence that would keep his spark safe in its chamber once again. He's a risk taker but not to the point that he'd expose his spark to the enemy. Deadlock was still the enemy. His mortal one. All while being his lover too. 

"I didn't know optics could change colors"

Deadlock offlined his optics for a bit and onlined them back with their usual ruby fire. Not that Hot Rod was to complain. He thinks Deadlock keeps those optics to match his flaming paint job. A hopeless romantic he was. 

"Your spark pulsed"

Deadlock caressed his cheeks. Still condensing and heated with the hue of heated energon that's gathered there in their previous acts of pleasure.

"The spark does that sometimes" Hot Rod took the hand on his cheeks and kissed its base. Never breaking eye contact. "Do you see colours, Deadlock?"

Deadlock giggled. He pulled Hot Rod to a kiss. "Of course I do"

"Have you always seen colors?" 


	2. Scope

"Yes"

No. _Yes and No_.

Deadlock was a mercenary. Megatron's favourite hitman because he didn't ask questions. He didn't hesitate to pull the trigger. He didn't care until he did. 

"Nyon?" 

"For the second time?! Did I stutter, hitman?" 

Skywarp examined the small apartment Deadlock was still staying in. He still hadn't moved into the central part of Kaon. He's hoping Megatron wouldn't ask him to. He spent a good part of his life despising spoilt and silver spoon fed mechs like Ratbat, Shockwave, and Starscream. He can't stomach living in such close proximities with them. It makes it easier to order him around. If he stayed at the Dead End, he's sure that the only orders he'd need to follow were pressing ones or ones that were directly from Megatron. Except this one, maybe "Soundwave seems to worry about this mech. Worried that his thoughts may become his actions and his action become our problems. Wants him closely watched"

"But Nyon? Isn't that province already burned down?"

Deadlock wasn't complaining, merely asking. His loyalties lie with Megatron after all. His undoubting loyalty. Not to his High Command. Not to Soundwave. 

"Yes, but it's not Decepticon Territory. Not yet" 

Deadlock didn't notice the cargo Skywarp had with him. It's hard to notice anything else when the seeker just teleported into his hab. Deadlock almost thanked Primus he wasn't doing anything _'out of character'._

"Shockwave got new toys for you to play with. He seems to be convinced that you have a bit of a disadvantage" 

Disadvantage? The presence of what comes with what he has not is the disadvantage.

"My optics are still not rendered to process the full spectrum" Deadlock spat out. Primus was either a dick or he's just dumb. Making the early models optically monochromatic, it was a nuisance at first. Try living in the streets and seeing only black and white or getting into a messy fight with a dangerous disadvantage of seeing only two kinds of colours. It was a nuisance at first, but now. Deadlock finds it a comfort, he doesn't have the urge to hurl his guts out whenever he's gutting another mech Megatron wants dead. He gets into more fights now though,so he's not that sure whether he likes the state of his optical rendering or not. 

Kneeling to open the cargo and finding a set of his preferred calibers of guns and a sniper rifle. He stared in awe"The senator calls it a disadvantage because he was part of the scheme that killed his sparkmate- another senator, Skywarp. Everyone knows that scandal" 

"He's not a senator anymore, not since we trashed the Senate" Skywarp cannot seem to hide the giddiness in his remembrance of that day. "I've heard a different story though, but that's another scandal, hard to keep secrets from Vosians, you know. The scandal I'm curious about is this one before me"

Skywarp let himself sit on the cargo hold that Deadlock closed after retrieving the rifle. He's fired a rifle. Primus, he may have fired every type of guns except those that haven't been engineered yet. But he's never had one. He doesn't have much in his possession. He couldn't afford much. 

"You call it a disadvantage. Shockwave calls it a disadvantage. I call it the easy way, Deadlock. You old timers can know who you're supposed to be with your miserable lives. Us new models? How in the pits can we know we're with the right mechs?!"

"You know,Skywarp"Deadlock assembled the rifle over his dirty berth sheets and smirked "Don't know, don't care. You sparklets care too much about spark bonds, life mates, and unimportant slags like that. One day, it'll get you killed" 

"One day, Deadlock, you're gonna fall for a mech and you're going to fall hard"

Deadlock aimed the rifle at Skywarp. It wasn't loaded. But the seeker didn't know that. "Not until you take a nose dive"

_Primus_!

"Primus! You planning to kill me?!"

Deadlock didn't move. He wanted to but he couldn't. Not when he's seeing a spectre of rendered colours. He peeked out of the rifle scope. Black and white. He looked through it again and saw a mash of purples, greys, yellows and reds. 

Deadlock regrets that the first thing he saw with colours was Skywarp's ugly face and uglier paint job. But he was seeing colours for the first time. It was something.

"You're trying to kill me!" Skywarp screeched once again but Deadlock didn't lower the gun. He haven't noticed Skywarp's threats at all. "I'm telling Starscream! And he's telling Megatron! And he's-"

"Have you always seen colours?" Skywarp launched at Deadlock but the hitman went out of his way and aimed the rifle elsewhere. Was his apartment always this dull? No wonder mechs he'd bring here rarely returns. He turned the scope to a broken glass. His reflection. 

Was he always this dull? 

White and greys. That's his colour. A few tinge of yellows on his cheek guards and chassis. But he's almost white and greys. A whole spectrum of colours and he's white and grey. No wonder mechs he's been with rarely returned. 

"First time experience, i think?" 

Skywarp calmed himself down. Thank Primus he's not as irrational as his louder trinemate. 

"Colours, I see them" Deadlock repeated, turning his scope towards Skywarp once again. "I see colours and the first thing I see is this mess of slag- Hey!"

Skywarp slapped the scope away from Deadlock before phasing his hand, as a test to a long teleporting destination. "Told you Shockwave had new toys for you to play with" then phased his entire frame out of the apartment. Likely into Kaon. If Deadlock could phase in and out like the outlier, he'd phase into wherever he's needed, get the job done, and play with the scope. Millions of years he'd lived and driven around Cybertron but it's as if he was seeing the planet for the first time. All in a beautiful mess of colours. He almost wished he'd find his sparkmate so that his optics would be fully rendered. Deadlock then learned he'd better be careful what he wished for.

He's in Nyon a few solar cycles after that. Already in a bird's nest with a perfect view of his target with his target, or anyone in the city, completely blind to his presence. He deactivated every camera and microphone that was within the bandwidth of Shockwave's toys, whatever was not in the bandwidth, he'd punch out of their mounting. He punched one that was put above his nest. 

Already tired of the dull ashen streets of the fallen province, not much colour in a warzone. Already itching to pull the trigger and snuff the only colour he'd seen since he arrived. Red. Red and Orange and burning. 

Deadlock's mission was strictly covert. Strictly. He's to stay in Nyon until he's pulled out by Soundwave's orders to conclude the mission or by Megatron's request for him to be present at another war front. Deadlock would usually enjoy the quiet. He does enjoy the quiet. Just not the dullness of the scenery.

"Bang bang" He whispered to himself, examining the only colour he could make out of the shadows and ashen streets of Nyon. "Thank Primus for your good taste in paint jobs. If you weren't pretty- Bang!- nobody would know, Hot Shot. Nobody" 

That's a lie. Soundwave would be the first to know. He'd be thrown out of the ranks for disobeying High Command Orders. Soundwave hears everything, everywhere. And right now, it seems that Soundwave wasn't the only one who heard those whispered words.

Deadlock saw Hot Rod put his hand on his audials before looking up at the bird's nest the Decepticon was in. It was a brief moment, but he knew that Hot Rod saw him there. That was confirmed when the red speedster transformed and drove the opposite way. Deadlock threw the rifle to the ground and noticed a still functioning camera next to his pedes. Guess he should have punched harder. 

Hot Rod was not hard to spot in a dull city. He's almost announcing his presence driving out the streets. Hot Rod's engines revved loudly, clearly running on low fuel and watered down energon. Hot Rod was not hard to track. Not with his Red and Orange paint job announcing where he was. The only advantage Hot Rod had was this was his city. An advantage Deadlock would find futile when he shot one of his wheels flat that he skidded into a fragile wall. Then another wheel that rendered him immobile and forced him to transform into his root mode. 

Red and Orange paint against the ashen streets. Deadlock didn't need to know anatomy to know where his most vulnerable part was. The red and orange flames on his chassis declared that. Hot Rod was not easy to lose in these dull streets. Not with his Red and Orange paint. 

Red and Orange paint. 

The rifle was in his nest. He has not scope to correct his monochromic rendered optics but there was his target. Still hard to lose in these ashen streets. Red and Orange paint. He didn't have anything to correct his black and white world.

Wrong.

Here was the only thing in the universe that could correct his black and white world. Permanently. Unfortunately. Tragically.

"You going to kill me or what?"

Hot Rod spat at the Decepticon towering above him. Guns aimed at his spark and his head. It's a choice whether he'd die by brain module malfunction or spark shrinking. Slag! 

"Or what"

"What?"

_What._

What did Deadlock mean or what? Kill him! He's been compromised, he should kill him. He needed to kill. He must kill him. Not drop his guns to the ashen streets and drive the other away. Not drive out of Nyon and back to Kaon. Not try to convince Megatron that Hot Rod was an asset which was too precious to kill.

He should have killed him. 

Like how he should not have asked questions. Like how he shouldn't have hesitated to pull the trigger. Like how shouldn't care until he did. Until Nyon. _Until Hot Rod_. 


	3. Spectrum

"You still see colours, Deadlock?"

"You still ask stupid questions, Hot Shot?" 

They lived through a war. Through a crazy space trip to find the Knights of Cybertron. Through Unicron eating their entire world as they know it. Through a lot of slag, they lived. _They lived and their conjunxes didn't._

"It'll be a shame if you won't see this view with a full spectrum" Earth was their home now. The world that ended their war and gave their race a home. "Green growth, Blue skies, Yellow sun. It's pretty, prettier now that humans aren't shooting at us. Megatron trashed the place and for a while all I saw was red"

_Megatron_. Rodimus rarely mentions his name. Since their return from the quest, since Megatron was taken away for his trial he knows nothing of the final verdict, since their secret bonding in the captain's quarters in the Lost Light on their last Lap of Honour that Drift had only known when Rodimus almost tore his spark out because he could not deal with the pain that never goes away. The pain Drift understood when he felt his own conjunx's spark pulse its last. Since then, Drift thought it would take him a while before he could. Either Rodimus finally moved past the pain or he just learned to live with it. 

"Red's a pretty colour, Roddy" Drift smiled, taking the smoking circuit booster from between his denta to between his fingers. Blowing a harmless cloud of oxygen to the earth's atmosphere. What's good for their new home was bad for their frame, speeds up their rusting. Win-win situation if you asked any of them both. 

"You think I'm pretty then?" There was no teasing in his tone. No malice. Nothing. It's as if he was talking for the sake of talking. Drift appreciated it. He didn't enjoy the silence that much, not since every silent moment was a reminder of his late conjunx that preferred to operate in complete and serene silence. They lived through hell and back, but their other halves didn't. Their other halves of choice, that is. Both Megatron and Ratchet were married to many things other Rodimus and Drift. To their work, to their cause, to one Optimus Prime. They were married to all that at some point, but never really to the two speedsters that lived. 

"Yeah"

"Yeah what?"

"Yeah, I still see colours"

"Swerve owes me a drink then. He bet that older model mechs' lose the full spectrum rendition when their sparkmate died"

Drift took another inhale from his booster. The problem with younger mechs? They're too caught up with the idea of sparkbonds and sparkmates that they don't know the difference. Ratchet didn't render the full spectre. Rodimus did. Sparkbond is a choice. You only get one sparkmate. This was a clear distinction for Drift. _It wasn't for Rodimus._

"Yeah, Swerve owes you one" 


End file.
